Just a thought or two on Ontario's health care and our province wide hospital crisis.!
The average elementary school student can understand the problems leading to overcrowding in Ontario's hospitals, but few in the health care system do, so it would seem to be the case.! Patients are crowded into hallways and common areas, with little to no privacy...seriously people this is totally unacceptable in my mind.
The "fragmentation" of Ontario's health care system contributes to hospital readmission rates of up to 20 per cent is the number of people who leave and then return to hospital within days.
Health care funding is tied to running as close to capacity as possible..."Even if everything is being done perfectly, hospital executives are required to run at 95 per cent capacity, "You don't need anything more than Grade 3 math to understand if you're running at 95 per capacity and then flu season comes along, you're going to get a surge and you're guaranteed to get gridlock." Thunder Bay as other hospitals has code gridlock most days of the week and or months on end.!
Better discharge planning could help alleviate that burden I believe...the hospitals must clear or free up the beds for the next wave of patients as quickly as they can, which causes a lot of readmissions, but the "fragmentation" of Ontario's health care system among hospitals, Local Health Integration Networks and Community Care Access Centres would still lead to problems within.
Our system cannot continue to house the seniors awaiting long term care beds...yet at the same time this brings up the topic of the extreme shortage of long term care housing which as our hospital shortcomings is a major issue which the province has fallen way behind in this sector of our healthcare system as well. That in an of itself is a totally new discussion.
Many doctors which I have contacted for their opinions have openly stated that they are admirers of Manitoba's model of regional health authorities which oversee hospital, home care and long-term care services.
Health care and long term senior's, was the forgotten issue in Ontario’s 2014 election in my opinion...the problems we have today were the same back then.! The the eHealth and ORNGE scandals ruled the day.
It’s widely accepted and acknowledged that the Ontario taxpayers should be getting much more value for all the money they spend on health care, an amount that in 2014 for example totalled $51 billion or 42 per cent of the entire provincial budget.
We should increasingly invest in developing physician and staff capabilities not only in clinical medicine but also in the process improvement...and increasing the number of primary care physicians has been linked to lower mortality rates, which is what we are severely lacking in the city for a tremendous number of years, as well the entire province.
Well I'm not all that much for typing such long messages...so this is it finally done thank god.! :) I could go on and on but I think I have gotten out there with this posting is good information for people to know...at least that is my hope.!